by Shuja Nawaz
The fledgling government clearly had much to learn about managing the country and especially the armed forces. Yet, as later events indicated, they continued to miscalculate the power of the military, creating a jungle of misunderstandings that led to backtracking during the next few years. One of Zardari’s few victories was largely due to his deft handling of the army chief on the matter of the latter’s extension of service beyond his first three-year term. Zardari had a clear notion that he wished the PPP to complete its five-year term. But he faced serious odds that weakened his ability to govern effectively.
Ungovernable
The heartland province of Punjab was in the hands of the Sharif brothers and they did little to assist Zardari in managing what could truly be called an ‘ungovernable’ country. 43 In Sindh, he had a coalition with the MQM, and in Balochistan, the provincial assembly was marked by cronyism and corruption to the extent that nearly every member of the provincial assembly also had an official position so they could double-dip for salaries and privileges. ‘At one time 61 out of 65 members of the assembly were ministers, advisors or parliamentary secretaries.’ 44 In the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), later to become Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Awami National Party resisted attempts by the federal government to actively govern the fractious region. Zardari took to deal-making across the board to keep his head above the turbulent politics of Pakistan, even signing into law a bill approved by parliament that allowed Islamic Sharia to be applied in the Malakand division of NWFP (comprising one-third of the NWFP) to assuage the rising Islamist nationalism of the Tehreek-e-Nifaaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammedi (TNSM) of Sufi Mohammed and his son-in-law Mullah Fazlullah (the future head of the TNSM and then the TTP). 45 The bill gave cover to the ANP’s signed deal with the Islamist insurgents who had effectively taken over Malakand, including Swat, Buner and Shangla, and threatened the Karakoram Highway.
Zardari also continued to be dogged by accusations of corruption and cronyism and was given little respite by the newly invigorated media, especially the large numbers of broadcast news organizations, which produced a steady drum beat of criticisms and abuse. Meanwhile, the Islamist groups captured the airwaves and built up their base using threat and skilful application of radical Islamic thought to create divisions inside Pakistan while fostering hatred for ‘Hindu India’. The army also continued to keep up the pressure on him, as he tried to build relations with India and even with the US. He took to a whirlwind of foreign tours to China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, among others. But none of these trips yielded the aid that he was seeking.
China promised few investments in Zardari’s Pakistan, even though Zardari presided over the signing of many MoUs between Chinese and Pakistani businesses. The Saudis were wary of him and favoured Sharif, whom they had harboured in exile. ‘According to a January 2009 cable, Saudi King Abdullah described Zardari as “the ‘rotten head’ that was infecting the whole body”; other cables suggest the Saudis would prefer Pakistan to lose its weak civilian leadership in favour of strong military rule.’ 46 According to a senior Pakistani diplomat, Zardari was briefed prior to his visit to Saudi Arabia not to directly discuss aid with Saudi King Abdullah, since that was normally left to officials to work out once they had discerned the wishes of the Saudi monarch from his conversation with his visitor. Zardari, according to the Pakistani diplomat, was very confident of his own persuasive powers and launched into a request for financial help soon after the Saudi monarch had welcomed him. A chill descended on the meeting, according to the diplomat. 47 Needless to say, no aid was forthcoming as a direct result of that visit.
The Empire Strikes Back: Mumbai 2008
The new and still weak government was faced with a huge challenge before the year was out. An attack on civilian targets in the heart of the Indian city of Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) on 26 November by a well-armed and well-trained group of terrorists with links to Pakistani-based jihadi outfits nearly brought India and Pakistan to war, while putting Pakistan in the dock of international public opinion. As many as 163 persons were killed by the attackers. One of them, Ajmal Kasab, was wounded and captured, tried and eventually executed by Indian authorities. The ensuing case reverberated across the globe, as evidence mounted that the terrorists were linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group that once was supported by the ISI for operations in Kashmir. A Pakistani-born informant of the US intelligence services, David Coleman Headley (original Pakistani name Daood Gilani), who apparently was involved in planning the attack, reportedly gave damaging testimony implicating Pakistan and its ISI in the attack. But India managed to botch the handling of the evidence as well as obscure the role of local and Bangladeshi groups in the planning and execution of the attack on Mumbai, producing a legal impasse with Pakistan in proving the case against official Pakistan. 48
Despite the lengthy chargesheet offered by Headley against the ISI and Pakistan, Headley was not a credible witness, with dubious loyalties. He had been working as an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration to track heroin shipments from Pakistan and been turned by the Pakistanis. He ended up training with the Lashkar. 49 His multiple employments, often simultaneous, seemed to indicate an innate ability to turn each adverse event to his own advantage. Though he linked the Lashkar to the ISI directly, the ISI challenged that assumption and maintained that it had cut ties to the Lashkar. When Musharraf was attempting to thaw relations with India with a view to seeing a resolution of the Kashmir dispute, the ISI reportedly cut the jihadi groups off. But it did not follow up in disbanding or disarming the group. It is not clear if this was done purposefully or not. It allowed LeT to remain active, especially in Kashmir and later in Afghanistan. The LeT and others had built up a financial base of their own inside Pakistan and with patrons in the Arabian Peninsula, public and private. It appears many ISI handlers of the Lashkar continued to retain their links with the newly banned organizations and some may have even joined their ranks.
Regarding the ISI’s links with the LeT, the ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Pasha explained to the Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani that ‘these were our guys but not our operation’. At the end of his meetings with his CIA counterpart Gen. Michael Hayden, 24–25 December 2008, Pasha had reportedly visited Haqqani at the latter’s residence on S Street NW in Washington DC. ‘Pasha said to me “Log hamaray thay, operation hamara nahin tha”,’ Haqqani writes in the book India Vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends? 50
‘General Pasha had also told General Hayden that “retired military officers and retired intelligence officers” had been involved in the planning of the attacks.’ 51
Haqqani took that to mean they were ISI agents, though the Urdu formulation, ‘Log hamaray thay, operation hamara nahin tha’, could also mean the terrorists were ‘of Pakistani origin’ though the ‘operation was not ours’.
The Pakistani government made some initial attempts to seal the offices of the jihadi outfits. None of the ex-ISI officers named in the charges by India were charged. Indian investigations into the attacks made little immediate progress. Pakistan blamed India for not sharing enough information to make a legally sustainable case in Pakistani courts. There was also internal friction between the civilian government and the military inside Pakistan on how to handle the investigation.
According to the New York Times, Prime Minister Gilani was reported to have offered to send ISI chief Gen. Pasha to India to discuss the investigation:
Pakistani officials said the decision to send Gen. Pasha to India was reached during a conversation between the prime ministers of both countries . . .
‘Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani called the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, Friday morning at 11 a.m. to condemn the attacks,’ Zahid Bashir, Mr Gilani’s spokesperson said by telephone.
‘The Indian prime minister stressed the need of intelligence sharing and evolving a joint strategy to counter terrorism,’ Mr Bashir said. ‘Dr Singh requested the prime minister to send the DG ISI to India to help in the inve
stigations.’
‘Once the modalities are worked out, the ISI chief will leave for India,’ Mr Bashir said.
Officials here said President Asif Ali Zardari also called Mr Singh to promise cooperation ‘in exposing and apprehending the culprits and the master minds [sic] behind the attack,’ according to a presidential spokesperson.
Mr Zardari said both countries should avoid being manipulated by militants. 52
The military thought the offer to send Pasha to India was inappropriate, and the government had to withdraw that offer. NSA Durrani said the offer had been made without consulting the DG-ISI. The military’s response was, ‘He doesn’t go. This is an intelligence service’, and ‘his going would be counterproductive. You are putting yourself in a spot.’ Little did Durrani realize that he himself would become a major senior casualty on the Pakistani side.
The NSA was publicly fired by the Pakistani prime minister for having confirmed that the captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani. Kasab’s family and village had been identified by journalists in the Punjab before the relatives were removed by security officials from public sight. Durrani had called his Indian counterpart M.K. Narayanan immediately after hearing about the Mumbai attack. ‘I called my counterpart in India whom I knew . . . I told him that we need to cooperate, see what happened, but we would love to send a couple of investigators to talk with your people in Bombay.’ But ‘he didn’t get back to me’. Durrani recalled that ‘there was this great threat of the Indians attacking us. There were rumors about them [the Indians] hitting Muridke [the headquarters of the LeT] . . . we carried out an assessment, our [ISI] agency and others and the air force . . . were of the view that there were about 50 per cent chances, 50–60 per cent, that they might do something by the movement of their forces, their helicopters, their aircrafts.’ So Durrani called Steve Hadley, the US NSA. ‘I told him, “Listen, if they do something as a reprisal . . . I can guarantee you one thing . . . Pakistan will be forced to respond. If they have any illusion that we will not. Please respect us.” Hadley called him back the next day: ‘I want to assure you that they will not do this.’ Durrani told him about the Pakistani assessment of a possible attack by India. Hadley assured him, ‘No. No. That is incorrect.’ 53
Durrani had been freelancing on his contacts with his India and American counterparts. He did not have a clear remit from the president or the prime minister. He recalls preparing a three-page document on the role and operations of the NSA’s office soon after he was appointed. The president asked him to remove the role of the finance ministry from the NSA’s orbit since the president wished to handle finance himself. On Mumbai, he stated that the PM ‘did not ask for an assessment. I was on my own . . . I was even calling the Indian embassy et cetera et cetera.’ Even the call to Hadley and the threat that Pakistan would react to an Indian provocation was Durrani’s own initiative. He explained that no regular briefings were expected or sought by the civilian leadership. Out of that lack of clear communications and regular relationships emerged the conflict that led to Durrani’s firing. Durrani states that everyone who had been tracking Kasab’s origins, including the journalists, knew he was from Pakistan. ‘The whole world knew about it’, but ‘we were keeping quiet. The day I made the announcement I had a chat with the DG ISI. I said, “Don’t you think we need to announce? We are looking like fools.” He said, “Sir, I have spoken with the president, and he supports that . . . we should announce.”’ Durrani recalls the PM was in Lahore that day. Durrani tried unsuccessfully to reach him. After that, ‘I made the determination myself, rightly or wrongly.’ He told the world that Kasab was a Pakistani on 7 January 2008.
Later that evening he saw on the local television that the PM had fired him!
Durrani said that Zardari told him that he was unaware of the Gilani decision to fire him. But he suspects now that the president was dissembling, and perhaps, the army chief, who came to see him the next day and spent an hour with Durrani, may also have been glad to see the back of Durrani. The plot may have been more complex. Apparently, the military was chary of the civilians autonomously bringing in a senior retired military officer to be NSA. The so-called Deep State jealously guarded its territory. 54
As usual, US Ambassador Patterson was quick to get to the source of the firing, and her cable to the Department of State offers multiple views on what transpired, while exposing the confusion inside the Pakistan government about what to do and when:
His dismissal has more to do with internal GOP [Government of Pakistan] dynamics than about Pakistani views on India or the Mumbai investigation. As is increasingly the case, PM Gilani was out of the loop and reacted angrily that he had not been consulted before the media announcement. Durrani told Ambassador that President Zardari had called him to apologize; both Interior Minister Malik and Ambassador to the US Haqqani confirmed to Ambassador that Zardari did not know Gilani was going to take this action. Durrani told Ambassador that Zardari promised that he would place Durrani in another position, but that he (Durrani) would decline if a new position were to be proffered. Zardari told Ambassador that he would try to find another high-level position for Durrani, but he had some sympathy for Gilani, who had heard about Durrani’s statements on the news and was blindsided . . .
Ambassador called Durrani January 8 to confirm the story. Durrani said he had consulted with ISI Director General Pasha and gotten his concurrence about announcing that Kasab was Pakistani. Pasha had been very specific that the government wanted to disseminate that information. Durrani said he was one of four people authorized, in writing, to make such statements on behalf of the government. (This is contradicted by others in government.)
Her report than went on to outline the chaotic handling of information by the government of Pakistan:
Despite Durrani’s assertion, the GOP did not coordinate release of the information. Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir first denied the report, then confirmed it. Separately, Information Minister Sherry Rehman confirmed it. When Gilani heard about these statements, said Durrani, he was in Lahore and out of the loop, and decided to fire Durrani for not consulting with him. (According to visiting Ambassador Haqqani, a Durrani ally, Gilani was a recipient of the memo authorizing Durrani to confirm Kasab’s nationality, but Gilani may not have seen it.) . . .
5. (C) In a meeting January 8 with Ambassador, Interior Minister Rehman Malik confirmed Zardari did not know that Gilani had fired Durrani. He said Durrani had never managed to develop good chemistry with the PM. As you know, he said ‘the PM is not very smart.’ The PM had been smarting [sic] for weeks that he was out of the loop and not kept informed by his ministers on a range of issues. Speaking about his own relations with Gilani, Malik said that he had an air-clearing session with Gilani a few days ago and arranged to have better cell phone connections with him. Malik said he reminded the PM that he had tried to get in touch with him for a full day in the PM’s home town of Multan recently about one of his operations but could not find him. 55
This episode reflected the lack of trust and poor communication between the civil and military on the one hand and among government officials in general on the other. It also showed a lack of confidence of the politicians and how civilians were loath to confront the military. They chose to offer human sacrifices on the altar of political expediency—people who had little political value in their minds when the military pushed the government. Zardari was not alone in this behaviour. Nawaz Sharif also suffered from the same timidity, even when he had a strong political base. The military continued to be the key dealmaker.
The Long March
As Zardari’s government lurched from one issue to the next, he could not escape the active participation and interest of the army in each imbroglio. The following year, Zardari faced a new challenge from Nawaz Sharif ’s party that had signed on to the lawyers’ movement demand for the reinstatement of the yet again deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Ironically, a PPP stalwart lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, continu
ed to be one of the key players in the movement and was in the procession, in the car with Nawaz Sharif, that took off from Lahore towards Islamabad. Their objective: force the government to put Chaudhry back in his position as head of the Supreme Court.
The army realized that it was caught in the battle between two powerful political forces—the government and the Opposition—and that it would be invited to protect the capital against the invading hordes accompanying the lawyers’ caravan. According to the US ambassador in Islamabad, Army Chief Gen. Kayani had sent ISI officers to persuade Nawaz Sharif to call off his ‘Long March’.
Aitzaz Ahsan recalls a more direct approach: receiving a call from Gen. Kayani near Gujranwala on the night of 15 March 2009. 56 Sharif was sitting in the car with him when Ahsan took the call from Brig. Zubair Mahmood Hayat, the private secretary to the army chief, around 11.30 p.m., who then connected him with Kayani. 57 It was a short conversation, recalls Ahsan. ‘He wanted to inform me that the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani would address the nation at 3 or 4 a.m. It might be useful to break the journey and hear him,’ Kayani said to Ahsan.
